April 2012: Erika Beatty

In addi­tion, we are con­cerned that cuts to the CBC will decrease aware­ness in adult audi­ences at the same time that young audi­ences are miss­ing out — edu­ca­tion pro­grams are hurt by higher tour­ing costs and decreased class­room time.

We need to develop a fourth rev­enue stream (in addi­tion to Earned Rev­enue, Pri­vate Sec­tor and Pub­lic Sec­tor).  I’m not sure what that is yet, but we’re think­ing hard about record­ing strate­gies and how to engage the dig­i­tal society.

How do you see the future of the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor in general?

To be per­fectly hon­est, I really don’t know right now. That’s why my men­tor­ship with Pierre at Cin­e­mu­sic in New York is so impor­tant to me. I have a feel­ing that we tend to be too inward look­ing, and that we are really miss­ing the big pic­ture.  I think we need more inter­na­tional inter­ac­tion. We need to be talk­ing to a global com­mu­nity more than we talk among our­selves, espe­cially because we are such a young nation, and we are actively seek­ing new Cana­di­ans to move here.

Do you have any mes­sages to your peers on the future of the CCA?

It’s unfor­tu­nate that the CCA has to be so pre­oc­cu­pied with its own sur­vival at the moment that it can’t fully focus on the health of its mem­bers.  It feels like the CCA needs to heed the flight atten­dants advice and “put your oxy­gen mask on before you help oth­ers”.  But I do think that the CCA is on the right track, and that Alain’s national tour, the qual­ity analy­sis and improve­ments in com­mu­ni­ca­tions show that the CCA is respond­ing to the voice of its mem­ber­ship.  I hope this is the start of a vir­tu­ous circle.